Irrigation systems are known to be used in agriculture for watering crops. In the case of large crops, irrigation systems are of adequate size, and generally consists of pivot or linear type systems.
More in detail, FIG. 1 shows an irrigation system I, which is composed by assembling a plurality of different components, including one or more tubing spans A operably arranged in series, the first of which is connected to the water source for drawing water. Further components may include means for propelling and distributing water, which generally consist of a gun sprinkler associated with the last tubing span A, sprinkling water over the soil with the help of a booster pump, and distributors B, one example whereof may be seen in FIG. 2, which are associated in variable numbers with each span A and are suitable to sprinkle water onto the underlying soil.
Also, these distributors B are in turn composed of a plurality of components E. These latter are formed of various shapes, sizes and materials, to provide distributors suitable to meet any requirement, i.e. distributing particular amounts of water from a predetermined height, according to the specific crops, with the amount of available water and with the current water pressure.
Therefore, an irrigation system appears to be a complex assembly of a large number of different types of components whose selection requires particular care. According to the prior art, such system is designed by technical experts who know all available components and their features.
During design, the expert first chooses the components in view of ensuring mechanical continuity of the system, i.e. taking care that the selected components can be assembled together. Furthermore, the expert selections shall be such to ensure proper operation of the system, which means that they shall comply with technical specifications such as pressure, amount of water to be distributed upon each individual location, height of each distributor from the ground, according to users' requirements.
It is also known that changes are often required to be operated to the design of an irrigation system, regardless of whether it is in operating conditions or not.
It often occurs that technical specifications are wrong or no longer applicable. It may occur, for example, that the specifications provided by the user are incorrect or that crops have been changed, and require a different amount of water and/or a different type of distributors, or also that pressure and availability of water have changed with time.
In any case, according to the prior art the designer shall rely on its expertise to operate changes while ensuring that the new specifications are met without having to start the design anew.
These changes generally consist in the displacement of one or more distributors, the addition of new distributors and/or the change of some of those provided at the beginning.
According to the prior art, the result of all the above is a comprehensive list of all the components required to make the system.
It is understood that, when changes are operated to an irrigation system in operating conditions, such process involves a first drawback in that the task of the person in charge with ordering any new components is complicated. In this case, the person in charge has to make a comparison between the list of components of the operating system and the list of components of the changed system to obtain the list of the components required to operate the changes.
These lists shall be also used by the technician that is charged of implementing the changes in the field, to determine the steps to be carried out, i.e. which components have to be replaced, where new components have to be added and, if needed, which components of those provided before have to be displaced.
It can be easily noted that the above process is particularly burdensome and time-consuming and often causes the technician to make errors.
Furthermore, at the end of the process the technician might also realize that the changes that have been operated do not achieve the intended goals. Indeed, in known systems there is no way to check that the changes that have been operated are sufficient to achieve the desired results.
A particularly remarkable exemplary case is when changes concern the pressure and/or amount of water available to an operating irrigation system. In this situation, the prior art generally requires a technical expert to rely on his/her expertise to change the configuration of the system in the field, because the known computer program products cannot provide any useful information.
These changes generally consist in the displacement of certain components, particularly the distributors, and in different flow adjustments thereof.
Such process appears to be highly burdensome and time-consuming for field technicians. Furthermore, the final result is uncertain and provides no assurance that the system has been appropriately changed to fulfill the new requirements.